Tag Archives: AAA

IO, a leading data center services company, is unveiling its new corporate office space at SkySong, The ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center.

IO will move into nearly 15,000-square-feet of space with an open, collaborative environment for about 80 Arizona-based corporate employees. IO, the second-largest private data center company in the world, operates six state-of-the-art data centers in Arizona, Ohio, New Jersey, Singapore and London. IO utilizes the latest data center technology and is trusted by more than 650 global clients, including LexisNexis, CBS Interactive, Fender, AAA and Goldman Sachs.

“We’re gratified to have the opportunity to bring IO to SkySong,” said Sharon Harper, President & CEO of Plaza Companies, the master developer of the project. “IO’s inventive spirit will fit right in here as SkySong continues to expand its on-campus talent pool of innovation-minded people.”

SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center is home to a global business community that links technology, entrepreneurship, innovation, and education to position ASU and Greater Phoenix as global leaders of the knowledge economy. The growing project recently completed the SkySong Apartments and is nearing the completion of SkySong 3, the third office building at the property.

“Our new SkySong office will allow for greater collaboration and engagement with our corporate team members,” said Craig LeBlanc, group leader of IO.People. “Since our founding in 2007, IO has had an entrepreneurial spirit and strong focus on innovation. SkySong is a great fit for our brand and we are excited to join the Valley’s center for innovation and technology.”

“SkySong exemplifies the spirit of innovation, which aligns perfectly with the vision of IO,” said Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, Senior Vice President for Knowledge Enterprise Development at Arizona State University, which is responsible for advancing research, entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development. “ASU strives to cultivate technology leaders in partnership with companies like IO, and we are delighted to welcome IO into the SkySong family.”

Mark Suarez spent a decade doing marketing work for companies like McDonald’s, AAA. Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill and the Arizona Office of Tourism. While the 35-year-old worked on both general campaigns and campaigns targeted at the Hispanic market, he saw the need for a company that specialized in multicultural marketing and advertising.

“I think folks have tried to create a multicultural division or had a token person who oversees that segment of the marketplace,” Suarez said, “but the fact is that you need to build it out and have capabilities that are culturally relevant.”

To fill that void, Suarez teamed up with Bill Lavidge of The Lavidge Company to create Mosaic Multicultural, a full-service multicultural marketing agency based in Phoenix that provides multicultural advertising, interactive, public relations and marketing services.

“I looked at this as an opportunity to grow my own business in a multicultural market that makes a lot of sense,” Suarez said. “One of the keys that differentiates us is that most folks think of multicultural as a Spanish-language agency. We are more than that. The reality is that we are a multicultural market and multicultural society and we help our customers position their businesses for the long term.”

As a third-generation Puerto Rican who grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Michigan Suarez knows the multicultural market inside and out.

“My friends and I called ourselves the United Nations,” Suarez said. “There were African-Americans, Arabic, Puerto Ricans, Caucasians. If you look around at the Phoenix market today, we all really do live in a multicultural society.”

Suarez said the face of the market is only going to change.

“When you look at the next 10 years, almost 60 percent of the growth in Phoenix is going to come from the Hispanic market,” he said “However your business is doing today, you’re not going to be doing as well 10 years from now if you don’t embrace the new marketplace and learn who tomorrow’s consumers will be.”

Suarez said companies like McDonald’s and AAA and the telecommunications and automotive industries have improved their bottom lines by embracing the multicultural approach. Other industries, he said, need to catch up.

“Industries like healthcare are still trying to find their footprint,” Suarez said. “They are embracing it, but embracing it and acting on it are two different things. They have recognized the need is there, but it’s the ‘how?’ that gives them trouble. That’s where Mosaic fits it.”

Hotels at this level are committed to providing every guest with a personalized experience and attentive service in comfortable, high-quality surroundings, according to AAA. They typically offer an extensive array of amenities and guest services.

Hyatt Regency Scottsdale is part of a select group of establishments within North America. Currently, just 1,535 hotels and 754 restaurants hold the AAA Four Diamond Rating.

“We are honored to be recognized as a AAA Four Diamond hotel,” said Peter Rice, General Manager. “At Hyatt Regency Scottsdale, we are committed to exceeding guest expectations and providing a premier travel experience. This rating acknowledges the hard work and dedication of our staff.”

“AAA is pleased to recognize Hyatt Regency Scottsdale as a Four Diamond hotel,” said Michael Petrone, director of AAA Tourism Information Development. “To maintain the exceptional standards required for this rating on a daily basis is an outstanding achievement. AAA Four Diamond establishments are attentive to guests needs and consistently deliver memorable travel and dining experiences.”

As president and CEO of AAA Arizona, Mike Tully has a keen interest in getting the state back on the road to prosperity. That probably explains why for the past seven years Tully, who joined AAA Arizona in 1998 as chief financial officer, has been a member of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council’s Finance Committee.

“GPEC’s role in our community is critical,” Tully says. “Attracting high-quality jobs to our state improves our health and economic performance, and makes the state a more attractive place for residents, as well as people moving to our beautiful state. As a membership organization representing nearly 800,000 people, AAA has a vested interest in the livelihood of Arizona.”

In addition to Tully’s position on the Finance Committee, AAA Arizona has a representative on the GPEC board of directors. That’s just part of the relationship.

“From a business perspective, we have used GPEC as a resource when we evaluated expansion opportunities, moving a large portion of our California operations to Arizona,” Tully says. “GPEC was invaluable in our ultimate decision, which resulted in nearly 800 new jobs being brought to our state.” GPEC’s mission to create a competitive, vibrant, diverse and self-sustaining regional economy is critical to all of Arizona’s industries, Tully says.

“Ensuring that Arizona continues to improve the diversity of high-paying quality jobs is more obvious than ever, as seen by our recent recession,” he says. “Our precipitous decline as the No. 1 job growth state to No. 50 is symptomatic of our lack of industry diversity.”

Tully has been instrumental in driving the tremendous growth of AAA over the past decade, including expansion of its membership, financial services, insurance and travel operations. Prior to joining AAA, Tully owned an export finance company that arranged structured trade finance transactions for exporters throughout the United States.

The AAA executive has deep Arizona roots, having earned his Bachelor of Science degree in finance in 1987, and a master’s in business administration in 1991, both from Arizona State University. In 2007, he graduated from the advanced management program at Harvard Business School. Tully also holds a CPA certification.

As for travel trends in Arizona, Tully says the future remains murky.

“Our short-term forecast is flat, although shorter trips and drive trips continue to be popular,” he says. “While business travel is picking up in many areas of the country, it has yet to rebound in the Southwest.”

Likewise, international travel to Arizona continues to be weak, which hurts even more because international travelers generally spend four to five times the amount of money as domestic visitors.

As senior vice president of AAA Arizona, Jim Prueter is part of a company that provides automotive, insurance and travel services to nearly 800,000 Arizona members. He’s no stranger to AAA, having worked as vice president of AAA Mid Atlantic in Philadelphia, and as executive vice president of AAA Chicago Motor Club. But he didn’t get his first taste of the travel industry side of the company until 1998, when he arrived in Arizona.

In his current post, he is responsible for heading up the largest leisure travel agency in Arizona, AAA Travel Agency. In addition, he is the publisher of AAA’s member magazine, Highroads Magazine. With a subscription of nearly half a million, the magazine is the largest in the state. In his various professional affiliations and as current chair of Arizona Tourism Alliance’s board of directors, Prueter recognizes the importance of tourism advocacy efforts.

“It is vitally important that the Arizona travel industry has a voice that is heard by our elected officials, the business community at large and the public. Tourism has a huge economic impact on our state, that is largely unknown, that must be heard,” Prueter says.

The ATA, Prueter says, is a driving force in spreading the message about the enormous impact the travel industry has on the state’s economy.

“The ATA serves as a catalyst and voice for the Arizona tourism industry dedicated to providing advocacy and generating awareness of the industry by providing education and leadership to the industry,” says Prueter. “Over 37 million domestic and international overnight travelers visited our state in 2008, spending some $18.5 billion. That equates to more than $51 million pumped directly into our economy every day. It is the only industry that brings prosperity to all 15 Arizona counties.”

He adds that taxes paid by visitors have a direct and measurable benefit on Arizonans, generating $2.6 billion in local, state and federal tax revenues in 2008.

The dismal economy certainly put a strain on the industry, as did the faltering state budget and bad press regarding corporate meetings (Meetings account for more than 70 percent of resort revenues in the state).

To counter this, Prueter encourages individuals to join organizations such as the ATA, the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association, the Arizona Restaurant Association, local convention and visitors bureaus and other industry organizations. His goal is to continue to work with the ATA on advocating tourism to all industries. With events such as the Unity Dinner and the Governor’s Conference on Tourism, the ATA will continue its efforts on behalf of travel and tourism in Arizona.

Getting the industry back on track will take some time, but Prueter offers this advice: “Don’t sit on the sidelines wringing your hands … Let them know what the economic impact of the Arizona tourism industry means to their business and the positive impacts travel has to the benefit of all Arizonans.”

Not too long ago, Mike Tully discovered something important about the perception of time. The AAA Arizona president and others in his organization were not on the same clock as members requesting roadside assistance.

AAA Arizona measured effective responses from the point when its personnel dispatched tow trucks until those trucks actually arrived on the scene. Members started their countdowns from the moment they phoned in for help. Sometimes that meant a difference of eight or nine minutes — something that became abundantly clear when members called back before tow trucks even hit the road.

Fortunately, AAA Arizona and many other businesses are now gaining important customer-experience insights through a technique called “service blueprinting,” which asks organizations to evaluate and improve services by looking at them through the eyes of customers. The concept of utilizing the customer’s perspective to develop a comprehensive service blueprint dates back several decades to a technique first discussed by G. Lynn Shostack, a one-time Citibank vice president, in the Harvard Business Review. The tool has evolved through the years and, now, has been outlined in great detail by three researchers with ties to Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

“Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation,” was published in the California Management Review this past May and co-authored by Mary Jo Bitner, Amy L. Ostrom and Felicia N. Morgan. Bitner is academic director for ASU’s Center for Leadership Services and the PetSmart Chair in Services Leadership at the W.P. Carey School of Business, while Ostrom is an associate marketing professor there. Morgan, a former ASU doctoral student, is an assistant marketing professor at the University of West Florida.

In working with companies, Ostrom says, it became apparent there was a need for an in-depth paper that included case studies of businesses that used blueprinting and realized its value.

“The technique, in a broad sense, is really focused on having people internally within an organization come together to help them really understand what it is they’re offering to the marketplace,” Ostrom says.

The objective is to get a handle on the actual customer experience and look for ways to improve and innovate. It involves mapping everything from face-to-face customer contact to behind-the-scenes support services.

“You end up getting a very, very clear diagram of what the customer’s walking through,” Tully says.

AAA Arizona was able to identify something of an annoyance for customers dealing with different departments. As a company that provides multiple products ranging from insurance to travel assistance, it’s not unusual for members to take care of different needs on a single call. AAA discovered customers were being asked to provide the same membership information each time their call was transferred from one department to another.

The organization now has a vice president who works on tightening up the service encounter for customers, eliminating any unnecessary hoops they’re being asked to jump through.

The benefits of a service blueprint can be wide-ranging. Organizations are able to chart how they provide services to customers, and then compare those findings with competitors’ practices.

“When you’re able to do things that customers value and do them better than your competitors, I think in general, that puts you in a much better situation,” Ostrom says.

Although some companies already make considerable efforts to understand their customers’ needs, oftentimes they don’t quite have a big-picture view of everything customers go through as part of the service experience. Blueprinting provides such insights and may indicate the need for additional research.

“I clearly think it does contribute to bottom-line performance,” he says.

Blueprinting is not just something for service-oriented businesses.

“Any company can use it because every company, to be honest, tends to be (a) service business when you really think about what they do,” Ostrom says.

A company might not be focused on providing services for external customers, but every company provides internal services.

Developing a comprehensive service blueprint requires collaboration across an entire organization, with input from front-line employees, middle management and senior management.

“This process of bringing people together within the organization that don’t tend to talk to one another normally gives them a picture of what the customer experience is that’s just different than they get through other techniques,” Ostrom says.

Service blueprinting is also flexible and can be modified to address a company’s unique situation. Examples include a business that interfaces exclusively with customers online or one that has to target the needs of different types of customers.

Ostrom has been working with companies on service blueprinting for some time through the Center for Services Leadership. But her first daylong workshop was scheduled in January and future such workshops are in the planning stages.

The full-day format allows Ostrom ample time to offer an overview of the technique and then guide attendees through the modification process.

“We find once people learn the tool and get some exposure to working with it in their own context, that gives them the knowledge they need to go back and start using it more widely within their own organization,” she says.